


In the Muck and the Mud

by snowshus



Category: Green Lantern (Comics)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Bugs & Insects, Character Death, Gen, Horror, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:00:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24990439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshus/pseuds/snowshus
Summary: Hal is stuck in a hole
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	In the Muck and the Mud

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BookofOdym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookofOdym/gifts).



> thank you for Ictus for reading over this for me!

Hal is in a hole. A real hole, not a metaphorical hole - well no, it is a metaphorical hole, but he’s also really in it. He can feel the dampness of the muddy walls under his nails as he slides down their slick surfaces again. It smells like rot where his fingers pull away the surface layer, like blood is seeping through the mud instead of water. It might be. It’s not like he can see a fucking thing in this dark, dank muddy hole. He tries bracing his back against the wall, pressing his feet into the soft sides, and using the pressure to walk his way out. But the walls are too slick and he slips down to bottom again with a splash as he hits the shallow puddle of liquid at the bottom. 

Something crawls under his pant leg. Something small with too many legs, and Hal shakes and slaps at his calf, trying to get it off in a fit of sudden primal panic. He staggers upright and stumbles away from the muddy walls. Bugs slither out through the gashes his hands had made and tumble down into the water creeping over his toes. They land with quiet plops, the only noise aside from his own breathing.

Just bugs, though. Bugs aren’t that bad, they’re just little animals doing their own thing, part of the great cycle of life or whatever shit St. Walker was spewing last week. Hal’s never been particularly afraid of bugs anyways. He was always that troublesome kid ruining his clothes by playing in the dirt and mud. It’s just the dark and the hole and being trapped with them that makes the harmless things feel sinister. 

_And me,_ the familiar voice reminds him. It sounds like the dry flutter of a moth's wings passing too close to his ear. 

“Fuck off,” Hal mutters, crouching down to dig into wall at about his knee level. The walls of this hole are soft enough for him to mark up, so they should be soft enough for him to dig small footholds into. If he can manage to dig out enough footholds as he climbs, he’ll be able to make a sort of ladder and get out.

The mud he’s carving out of the ground smells different the higher he gets. The smell of decomposition fades away under the sharp acrid, stench of gasoline and ash and something foul. Hal doesn’t look up, doesn’t try to see if there’s an opening visible. He needs to get out and he’ll climb as far as he has to. 

_It’s flesh,_ the voice clarifies for him. _The smell you can’t identify. Well won’t is probably more accurate, and hair. It such a distinctive smell when it burns, don't you agree? I know you recognize it, it’s haunted you your whole life, hasn’t it? The smell of Daddy’s body burning. It follows you everywhere, clinging to that jacket you wear. You can never seem to get it out._

Hal’s foot slips from nook. He tumbles down the long dark hole and it feels like he falls forever. When he hits the ground, the water level has risen to cover his ankles. As soon as he touches the ground the bugs come up, crawling over him, wriggling under his clothes and into his hair. Hal stumbles to his feet, brushing and slapping the bugs off his arms wherever he feels their tiny legs and slimy bellies on his skin. He feels something brush against his ear. His head jerks and he brushes at it several times, hoping whatever it was is off and not crawling into his ear. 

Back at the bottom of the hole the smell of gasoline and fire is gone, and it’s just the cloying sulfuric smell of decay. Hal takes a deep breath. Regroups. He has to get out of this hole. He has to get out. He has to see what Parallax is doing.

 _You could just look,_ the voice offers. _This is your prison after all. It can be whatever you want._

Hal ignores the voice and finds the notch he’d made for his ladder and starts to climb again. 

_You don’t really want to see, though. The other one, the young one you’re so fond of, his prison had big bay windows so he’d know exactly what I was doing. Not you, though. You’re too scared. You didn’t want to see so you built yourself a deep dark hole where you don’t have to deal with it._

Hal slips again. The water at the bottom of the hole is halfway up his calves. 

_Don’t you want a little light? Don’t you want to know whose blood you're standing in?_

A pale yellow light slowly fills the hole until Hal can make out the walls and floor of his prison. The mud staining his hands is rusty red, almost orange in the light. Parallax twists around him in its giant insect body. It’s segmented legs wrap over his chest pulling him against the hard shell of his thorax. 

_Your friend with the red hair was so good,_ it whispers to him, it’s many sharpened teeth brushing across his neck drawing thin lines or blood in their wake. _I almost want to let you go for a second so you can know what it's like to taste his blood on your teeth._

“No.” Hal lashes out struggles against the arms twisting around him. He feels the hard shell of Parallax’s body crack but it just laughs at his struggles pulling him in tighter. 

_He tried. He really did, and the last thing he saw before we reached into his chest and pulled his heart out was you. His dear friend. It must have hurt, knowing he was so wrong about you. It must have killed him. Oh wait - it did. It ripped his heart out and now the worms fill in the empty space._ Parallax laughs, and in the dull yellow light a flood of wriggling insects pours out of one of Hal's footholds. 

“No. No-you won’t get away with this. I’ll get out. I’ll kill you.” Hal pulls out of it’s grip.

_No you won’t. You’re too scared. You always have been. Oh you have the will, of course, to do what needs doing in the face of all that delicious fear, but you’ll never get rid of it. You can’t turn it into something else like so many others can. You can’t make it anger or greed or even compassion. It just sits inside you all the time, a perfect little home for me in your heart. I knew you loved me. So no, sweetheart, you’ll never get me out. Not really. Even if you escape this prison. I’ll still be in you. I’ll still own you. I’ll always own you._

“Fuck you,” Hal growls, shoving his hand into the hole. The worms and centipedes wriggle over him, twisting and squirming across his skin and under his clothes as he starts to climb. Parallax's laugh echoes up after him. 

The smell of decay gives way to gasoline and then that too fades, the higher he climbs. The air gets thinner and thinner until every breath is a desperate attempt to pull enough oxygen to stave off the black spots and tunnelling vision. Hal keeps climbing--digging out little notches deep enough for his toes to grip. He’s barely clinging to consciousness when he hits the top. It’s made of wood, rough and cool like the old well covering behind his great-grandfather’s house. It had been covered after his great uncle had fallen in and died as a child, long before Hal had been born. He remembers trying to pry the lid off with his brothers one summer but they hadn’t been able to move it.

He bangs on the lid with one hand, but it is as solidly locked down as the one from his memory. He pounds it again, hit’s it over and over. There is nothing else to do. He loses track of time, loses himself in the repetition, loses feeling in his hand. His bones crack, his knuckles split and he keeps hitting the lid. 

He almost falls when the lid disappears--would have fallen if Parallax hadn’t caught his hand in it’s pincer and dragged him up. 

_You made it, I guess that means you’ve earned a reward._ It grins, pulling him close and the sudden smell knocks Hal back. It’s a thousand times stronger than it was in the hole. The smell of blood coats the inside of his lungs and he can taste it in every breath. His body retches, His muscles tighten and convulse in the desire to rid itself of the smell. 

Something crunches under his hand. 

Hal looks down. He’s kneeling over someone. Their tunic is nearly black with blood stains, he can’t really tell where the blood came from, or if it’s still coming. The collar of the tunic opens and frames Hal’s hand, which is closed around a pale throat that bends below his fingers. Gloved hands spasm around his wrist, weakly scrabbling against his arm. Blood bubbles up between red stained lips on every wheezing exhale. It trickles down across the bruised cheek before disappearing into matted blond hair. 

Hal pulls his hand back. Oliver’s fingers slip down his arm gripping weakly at his hand before falling to the floor. His lips move, opening and closing around words that can’t make it out of his crushed throat. Every wet inhale ends too soon and every exhale brings a new bubble of blood spilling down his face. 

“No, no. Ollie, it’s okay. You’re gonna--please no. I’m sorry I didn’t mean--I’m so sorry.” Hal wipes away at the blood like that could possibly help. It smears along Ollie’s cheek. In his head he can hear Parallax. Its laugh, like buzzing hornets, fills Hal’s mind, drowning out the sound of Ollie’s shortening breaths. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispers over and over and the buzzing gets louder and louder and louder and--. 

Hal is in a hole. A real hole, not a metaphorical hole - well no, it is a metaphorical hole, but he’s also really in it. His knees sink into the muddy floor as liquid pools around his waist. The little insects squirm across his arms and down his face and the smell of blood and death follow them. 


End file.
